Aircraft Maintenance Technology

October 2013

Aircraft Maintenance Technology - Management; Operations; Insight. AMT is written for aircraft maintenance professionals of any level. Editorial is focused on the latest technology and maintenance best practices, as well as business trends and outlooks. Issues include regular coverage of the entire aviation industry including: airline, business aviation, general aviation, military, commercial MRO, and rotorcraft. Additional articles include AMTSociety Update, From the FAA, and Industry Insight columns from leading industry organizations like ARSA, ATEC, GAMA, and a regular aviation focused insurance column. AMT reaches more than 42,000 aircraft maintenance professionals with our print and digital circulation and has digital products including a daily newsletter and website, AviationPros.com.

When you don’t understand or appreciate a particular music genre it “all sounds the same.” Let me explain. If you don’t like classical, opera, folk, rap, or hip hop music, when you hear those genres of music you can’t differentiate among the...

Most pilots today probably don’t realize that the average piston-engine airplane in the United States is 40 years old. That’s right — they were built around the same time that disco and bell-bottom pants were considered cool. Unfortunately...

The inbound plane is 15 minutes out from the gate, so you pick up your tablet computer and touch the icon for that flight. It displays the performance data of that aircraft, and you see exactly what needs to be worked on while that aircraft is at the...

Once, it was considered supernatural to contemplate shedding the confines of the earth’s gravity. Sorcerers, wizards, and mythical beasts had the power to achieve feats of controlled flight. In days of old, enchanted airborne journeys were full of peril...

Recently I was touring a new MRO facility and the host managers were discussing authorized repair capability, PMAs, and expediting STCs, and I recognized that it was time for refresher training on the definition and applicability of those acronyms.
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At the Richard D. Shea/Cuyahoga County Airport in East Cleveland, there is a quiet airplane manufacturer hard at work. The Nextant 400 XTi is the result of a revolution in thinking, on the part of both the company and the FAA. One of only two such...

A recent press release announced a digital entertainment company had just installed its in-flight connectivity solution in its 2,000th commercial aircraft. Today’s passengers want the same easy access and entertainment that they have at home or at their...

A society is a group of people who organize for a specific purpose. Our group, AMTSociety , was formed in 2005 to provide a community for the aircraft maintenance industry. Currently we have 2,461 members. Members are technicians, maintenance managers...

We have all seen Airworthiness Directives (ADs) in the past that made us fear the further demise of general aviation. I can think back to 2003 when the outrageous proposal on 400 Cessna series aircraft threatened huge costs regarding wing spar...

Aviation maintenance technicians who support business aircraft fleets often work under their Part 65 mechanic certificate with powerplant and/or airframe ratings and inspection authorization. This makes them vulnerable to vagaries of aviation safety...

Mechanics who work exclusively on business jets flown by high-powered executives, their friends, and clients already know this. But for those maintenance technicians who only occasionally work on these private jets, here are some lessons I was recently...